One of the hidden factors in the housing market crash is that income has stagnated during the Bush reign of terror on the middle class. People in the past could stretch for a while to make mortgage payments assured that their income would rise and so would the value of their property. The perfect storm happened when "trickle down" never became a reality with the greedy keeping all the benefits to themselves.

The only way to maintain a long term robust economy is to make things. We have given away all of our manufacturing and have such a trade imbalance that we will probably never recover our position in the world.

Sadly the only good that ever came from a war time economy, was prosperity from the building of the war machine. Now we don't even produce the steel that covers the tanks! That should scare anyone that can think about the repercussions of need to import war products.

When the factories are all offshore, where will Rosie the Riveter work?